April 2021 – Militant Futurist

LED lightbulbs are now cheaper than CFL bulbs and no more expensive than incandescent bulbs (at least, at my local Home Depot, where I took the above photos). Considering the fact that LEDs use less electricity and last much longer than either of the other two, and emit light with the same spectral qualities, it makes no economic or aesthetic sense to buy anything but LEDs. This also means another of my future predictions has come true:

“[During the 2020s] LED light bulbs will become as cheap as CFL and even incandescent bulbs. It won’t make economic sense NOT to buy LEDs, and they will establish market dominance.”

Here’s an article from 2015 about the rise of LED lightbulbs and “smart bulbs,” which can send and receive data via Wifi.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/garden/the-rise-of-the-smartbulb.html

A funny list of wrong predictions.
https://www.2spare.com/item_50221.html

During its 2.4 million years of existence, about 2.5 billion Tyrannosaurus rex lived and died.
https://www.axios.com/t-rex-billion-dinosaur-population-estimates-study-bbee965b-268c-4afc-9dc7-f9f9901ab080.html

Here’s an old but interesting AMD presentation about the feasibility of building a “holodeck” using real technology. The illustrations show a dome-shaped room the user stands at the center of.
https://www.slideshare.net/AMD/amd-isscc-keynote

The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships are a failed experiment at this point: they cost almost as much to operate as the much larger and more powerful Arleigh-Burke class destroyers. We should have made a new class of frigates that improved on the conventional Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates instead of making the Littoral Combat Ships.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40147/littoral-combat-ships-cost-nearly-as-much-to-run-as-guided-missile-destroyers

President Biden will withdraw the last 3,500 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by 9/11/2021, ending 20 years of low-level warfare and occupation. I agree with him that things in Afghanistan are as good as they’re going to ever get, and staying there forever isn’t an option.
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986955659/biden-to-announce-he-will-end-americas-longest-war-in-afghanistan

After North Vietnam annexed its Southern rival in 1975, it seized vast amounts of U.S.-made weapons, ranging from weapons to fighter planes. Some items were kept in service, and some were used to arm rebel groups throughout the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPhFoptpkiE

“Harop” flying suicide drones make scary wailing noises as they plunge to the ground, like the Stukas of WWII. This design feature is deliberately.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40265/the-sound-of-this-nighttime-suicide-drone-strike-is-absolutely-terrifying

The “Smart Slide” attaches is a new accessory for Glock handguns that has a small digital display counting the number of bullets remaining in the weapon. This feature has long been a feature of sci-fi movies and video games. As sensors and computer chips get cheaper and smaller, bullet counting devices will get very cheap and reliable.
https://youtu.be/oPsT06VjudA

Nuclear fusion powers the sun, is the force behind thermonuclear bombs, and might be harnessed someday to make practically unlimited amounts of clean energy. Subatomic fusion involves even smaller particles, “quarks,” and releases eight times as much energy per fusion event, but has no practical use since the fusion of two quarks doesn’t release enough energy to create a chain reaction of nearby quarks fusing.
https://www.livescience.com/60847-charm-quark-fusion-subatomic-hydrogen-bomb.html

Robotic automation would be enormously helpful in chemistry labs, allowing human chemists to focus on more interesting, higher-level work.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/03/31/lab-of-the-future

“So, if we’re looking for areas of physics that a quantum computer would have trouble simulating, we’re left with just one: quantum gravity.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-there-anything-beyond-quantum-computing/

As I mentioned in a recent post, the human brain is much much more energy-efficient than our best computers. This article has more technical detail on the reasons for that.
‘While computing architectures separating memory and processor have without a doubt been one of the greatest tools humans have ever built and will continue to be more and more capable, it introduces fundamental limitations in our ability to build large-scale adaptive systems at practical power efficiencies.’
https://knowm.org/the-adaptive-power-problem/

I don’t think the technological singularity will happen, but it’s still useful to read essays from the pro- camp sometimes. I agree with the author that it’s unlikely humans will be able to keep pace with AI by merging our minds with computers. Doing the interface will be very hard, and even if it were done seamlessly, the “merged” people would still be hamstrung by the limitations of their organic brains and all the evolutionary baggage that comes with it.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-worst-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-singularity-1486458719

This article on why AGI won’t destroy the human race dovetails with my recent post about the same topic. I wish I’d thought of some of these ideas.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/10-reasons-an-artificial-intelligence-wouldnt-turn-evil-1564569855

The Hyundai-owned car company “Genesis” celebrated its entry into China’s market by flying a record-breaking 3,281 drones simultaneously as part of a show.
https://www.engadget.com/genesis-breaks-drone-world-record-214420405.html

“In this ABC interview from 1974, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke makes the bold claim that one day computers will allow people to work from home and access their banking records.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTdWQAKzESA

Elon Musk’s Neuralink company announced new progress in brain-computer implants: a monkey was able to play a simple video game by thought alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rXrGH52aoM

‘Stolyarov foresees a different outcome. Instead of relentlessly optimising ourselves to a model of perfection, he predicts an explosion of diversity. “Different people would choose to augment themselves in different ways, stretching their abilities in different directions. We will not see a monolithic hierarchy of some augmented humans at the top, while the non-augmented humans get relegated to the bottom,” he reasons. “Rather, widespread acceptance of emerging technologies would create a future where a thousand augmented flowers will bloom.”’

I think this will turn out to be half right, half wrong. Once we’re masters of genetic and biological manipulation and can install cyborg implants in ourselves, the bar for a variety of important human traits will be raised for everybody, so what counts as “standard” in 2171 will be today’s “99th percentile human.” Think of it like getting vaccines today–why put yourself at risk of contracting polio, measles, and mumps when you can get a few cheap (free for some people) injections? Why only pick one or two and leave yourself at risk for others when it’s trivially easy to just get the shots all at once and cover your bases for all the diseases?

Likewise, in the distant future, a “standard human package” would include 20/10 vision, excellent hearing, 140 IQ, 120-year lifespan, etc. The “average human” will be the sort of person who gets into MIT at age 16 today, becomes captain of the baseball team and leader of a bunch of student groups, and does modeling gigs on the side. With that higher standard in place, individuals would upgrade themselves well beyond human limits in whatever niche areas they desired, like replacing their legs with robot legs or wheels so they could run at 40 mph.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140924-the-greatest-myths-about-cyborgs

Yuri Gagarin went into space 60 years ago.
https://apnews.com/article/technology-moscow-bbb2cf68c5eb9a724df52c3b13bd0d4f

For the first time, a human-made aircraft flew on another planet.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56799755

There have been recent UFO sightings in Canada by credible people.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xewj/air-canada-westjet-porter-pilots-ufo-sightings

There are insane but theoretically plausible plans to make Mars habitable by building giant satellites around it that would create an artificial magnetic field around the planet. This would prevent its atmosphere from blowing off into space, letting it slowly thicken enough to support life.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/magnetic-shield-mars-habitable

‘Earlier work by Hazen and other scientists showed that minerals and life likely coevolved. Minerals might have prodded life along by catalyzing reactions that produced biomolecules, for example. And life certainly changed the biosphere in ways that affected how minerals formed. “The origin of life depends on minerals, but the origin of minerals depends on life,” said Hazen. Because of this relationship, the presence or absence of certain minerals on distant planets could affect the chance that the planet harbors detectable life. For example, astronomers know that some stars have different ratios of elements than the Sun does. The star’s chemical makeup affects the abundance of elements on any orbiting planets, and thus which minerals might form. Those minerals in turn could influence geological processes, the chances of life emerging and whether signs of life would be visible.’
https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-mineral-evolution-driven-by-chance-20150811/

The “X-CarCopter” and “X-TankCopter” are little drones that can drive over the ground and fly in the air.
https://youtu.be/PJMQQg_Qmf0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_nHb3gvijU

‘The Harvard geneticist George Church told me that one day sensors might “sip the air” so that a genomic app on our phones can tell us if there’s a pathogen lurking in a room.’
Quite possible. Also, the same sensors could detect all kinds of other things aside from pathogens, like substances you were allergic to. If you had a severe peanut allergy, you could wave your smartphone over a meal you had ordered to make sure it had none in it.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/25/magazine/genome-sequencing-covid-variants.html

A rancher in Texas has been cloning prize deer so people can hunt them.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-rancher-cloned-deer-lawmakers-want-legalize_n_607ef3e0e4b03c18bc29fdd2

In September of last year, Bill Gates predicted that 2 – 4 COVID-19 vaccines would be FDA approved by early 2021. He was right–three have been authorized in the U.S., and even more varieties are available overseas.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-thinks-ll-covid-110000085.html

Also in September, then-President Trump predicted that vaccine production levels would be high enough “by April” of 2021 to provide a dose to every American. While that proved overly optimistic, it’s now the end of April, and 1/3 of all U.S. adults have been fully vaccinated, which represents major progress.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8748985/Donald-Trump-says-American-vaccine-April.html
https://apnews.com/article/ny-state-wire-coronavirus-health-1b7dd49a70a5232dca0cf2431d4da7b3

The typical bragging about the superiority of their healthcare system has ceased as Canadians have watched America sharply pull ahead in vaccinating its citizens against COVID-19.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/20/coronavirus-canada-vaccine-united-states/

The more contagious COVID-19 strain that originated in Britain is now the dominant strain in the U.S.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/uk-coronavirus-variant-now-dominant-strain-us-rcna606

One piece of feedback I received on my analysis of how accurate Ray Kurzweil’s predictions for 2019 were was that I should include some kind of summary of my findings. I agree it would be valuable since it would let readers “see the forest for the trees,” so I have compiled a table showing each of Kurzweil’s predictions along with my rating how each turned out. The possible ratings are:

Right
Part right, part wrong
Will happen later
Wrong because needlessly specific / right in spirit, wrong in specifics
Wrong
Will probably never be 100% right
Impossible to judge accurately / Unclear
Overtaken by other tech

Note that it is possible for a prediction to fall under more than one of those categories. For example, the prediction that “The expected life span…[is now] over one hundred” was “Wrong” because it was not true in any country at the end of 2019, however, it also “Will happen later” since there will be a point farther in the future when life expectancy reaches that level.

Additionally, for many predictions that were not “Right” in 2019, I analyzed whether and when they might be, and put my findings under the table’s “Notes” column. This exercise is valuable since it shows us whether Kurzweil is headed in the wrong direction as a futurist, or whether he’s right about the trajectory of future events but overly optimistic about how soon important milestones will be reached.

The completed table is large, and is best viewed on a large screen, so I don’t recommend looking at it on your smartphone. It’s size also made it unsuited for a WordPress table, so I can’t directly embed it into this blog post. Instead, I present my table as a downloadable PDF, and as a series of image snapshots shown below.

Kurzweil-predictions-analysis-Sheet1 Download

So, will Kurzweil’s 2019 be our reality by 2029? In large part, yes, but with some notable misses. According to my estimates, by the end of 2029, augmented reality and virtual reality technology will reach the levels he envisioned, and VR gaming will be a mainstream entertainment medium (though not the dominant one). AI personal assistants will have the “humanness” and complexities of personality he envisioned (though it should be emphasized that they will not be sentient or truly intelligent). Real-time language translating technology will be as good as average human translators. Body-worn health monitoring devices will match his vision. Finally, it’s within the realm of possibility that the cost-performance of computer processors in 2029 could be what he predicted for 2019, but the milestone probably won’t be reached until later.

However, nanomachines, cybernetic implants that endow users with above-normal capabilities, and our understanding of how the human brain works and of its “algorithms” for intelligence and sentience will not approach his forecasted levels of sophistication and/or use until well into this century. These delays that were evident in 2019 are important since they significantly push back the likely dates when Kurzweil’s later predictions (which I am aware of but have not yet discussed on this blog) about radical life extension, the fusion of man and machine, and the creation of the first artificial general intelligence (AGI) will come true. His predictions about robotics and about the rate of improvement to the cost-performance of computer processors are also too optimistic. Those are all very important developments, and the delays reinforce my longstanding view that Kurzweil’s vision of the future will largely turn out right, but will take decades longer to become a reality than he predicts. He has repeatedly indicated that he is very scared to die, which makes me suspect Kurzweil skews the dates of his future predictions–particularly those about life extension technology–closer to the present so they will fall within his projected lifespan.

That said, my analysis of his 2019 predictions shows he’s on the wrong track on a few issues, but that it isn’t consequential. “Quantum diffraction” cameras may not ever catch on, but so what? Regular digital cameras operating on conventional principles are everywhere and can capture any events of interest. In 2029 and beyond, data cables to devices like computer monitors and controllers will still be common, and not everything will be wireless, but I don’t see how this will impose real hardship on anyone or be a drag on any area of science, technology, or economic development. Keyboards, paper, books, and rotating computer hard disks will also remain in common use for much longer than Kurzweil thinks, but aside from annoying him and a small number of like-minded technophiles, I don’t see how their continuance will hurt anything. On that note, let me touch on another longstanding view I’ve had of him and his way of thinking: Kurzweil errs by ignoring “the Caveman Principle,” and by assuming average people like technology as much as he does.

This holds especially true for implanted technologies like brain implants and cybernetic implants in the eyes and ears. I agree with Kurzweil that they will eventually become common, but the natural human aversion to disfiguring own bodies, and the coming improvements to wearable technologies like AR glasses and earbuds, will delay it until the distant future.

In conclusion, Ray Kurzweil remains a high-quality futurist, and it would be a mistake to dismiss everything he says because some of his predictions failed to come true. Those failures are either inconsequential or are still on track to happen, albeit farther in the future than he originally said. Out of 66 predictions (as I defined them) for 2019, three are write-offs since they are “Impossible to judge accurately / Unclear.” Of the remaining 63, fifteen were simply “Right,” and by 2029, about another 14 will be “Right,” or “clearly about to be Right within the next few years.” Another 16 will still probably be “Wrong,” but it won’t be consequential (e.g. – people will still type of keyboards, some keyboards will still have cables connected to them, hi-res volumetric displays won’t exist, but it won’t matter since people will be able to use eyewear to see holographic images anyway). Forty-five out of a possible 63 by 2029 ain’t bad.

The remaining 18 predictions likely to still be false in 2029 and which are of consequence include building nanomachines, extending human lifespan, building an AGI, and understanding how the brain works. They will probably lag Kurzweil’s expectations by a larger margin than they did in 2019, some progress will still have occurred during the 2020s, and each field of research will be getting large amounts of investment to reach the same goals Kurzweil wants. The potential benefits of all of them will still be recognized, and no new laws of nature will have been discovered prohibiting them from being achieved through sustained effort. Then, as now, we’ll be able to say he’s essentially on the right track, as scary as that may be (read his other stuff yourself).

Month: April 2021

Interesting articles, April 2021

Will Kurzweil’s 2019 be our 2029?