Kurzweil killed with his keynote

Yeah, word is that he's rather monotone in private conversations, but comes alive on stage.

Any talk about scanning library stacks?

More evidence for what I was saying in my superhumanism post!

Link to Michael's "Superhumanism" post.

Michael:

Are you saying this is more evidence that the uninitiated are ready to accept hard transhumanism?

If so, I tend to agree with you. Part of the point that Phil and I were making in our last podcast was that it can be surprising the people who are capable of "getting it."

But notice that Kurzweil didn't puke Singularity all over these librarians. He held back.

Because of who he is and what he does (giving regular Singularitarian speeches at $25,000 each) Ray Kurzweil is probably the world's leading expert on what audiences are able to accept regarding the Singularity.

And so he has prepared presentations for the initiated, and then for the uninitiated. He probably has a presentation ready for an audience somewhere in the middle too. He has his talking points ready for those occasions when he debates with Singularity skeptics.

I believe that Singularity thinking is ready for primetime. But I don't think it's a sell-out to be mindful of the audience we are addressing.

Stephen --

No reference to destructive scanning of libraries. I think the main reason Ray didn't get to the Singularity was time. This group was with him all the way.

Actually -- come to think of it -- seeing as Michael has clearly demonstrated that the Singularity can be outlined in five easy-to-digest points that can be covered in less than a minute, Kurzweil apparently chose not to go there. And that was probably for the reasons you gave, Stephen.

I have one video snippet of a very astute librarian essentially figuring out the singularity for himself. Hope to have all the clips up soon.