[extropy-chat] "The Spike"- Ray Kurzweil

[pietro ferri]

>>I was going to wait until Pietro had told us which of Ray's ideas he 
>>wanted to see analyzed in depth.<<
First, thank you all for sharing so many comments. Of particular interest to 
me is Ray’s timeline and his predictions ( 2019 2029 and 2099). I believe 
that no one has yet produced such a detailed series of predictions ( with a 
precise timeline). It would be really great if Damien (and all the others) 
commented in depth. Actually Max More some time ago did just that in a very 
interesting exchange with Ray himself.
For instance, one idea I feel confident enough to challenge ( having, maybe 
a bit casually, studied economics as part of my business administration 
degrees) is Ray’s prediction (for 2009), and I cite, “ THE GREATEST GAINS 
CONTINUE TO BE IN THE VALUE OF THE STOCK MARKET. Price deflation concerned 
economists in the early ’00 years, but they quickly realized it was a good 
thing”.     Well, I do have a problem with the above sentence. I would say ( 
and please Max comment, since you are a Oxford economist!) that, over the 
long term, the total stock exchange market capitalization is clearly 
correlated to GDP (in nominal terms). So, if GDP has not grown in nominal 
terms (because of the deflation ray predicts) it is strange to say that 
stocks have continued to significantly rise. After all, stock prices are 
(over the long term) very strongly correlated to earnings. And, admitting 
that profit margins cannot improve for everybody, there is no way that 
companies can make more money in nominal terms if prices fall for a 
sustained period of time ( again, as Ray predicts). The only possibility is 
for GDP to grow at a very strong pace for a long period, to compensate for 
the deflation. For example if GDP grew at an average of 2 percent per year 
(in nominal terms) and deflation were “only” 3 per cent, then we could have 
rising stock prices. But this implies a growth rate in real terms of 5 per 
cent: for a developed economy (like the US and Europe) something extremely 
difficult to achieve over the long term.
What do you guys think?

Also, Damien I feel that you do have several things you disagree with Ray 
about. Why don’t you challenge him directly? After all his latest book is 
called “ Ray Kurzweil versus the critics of strong AI” where several expert 
challenged him. I found the book extremely interesting and useful ( by the 
way, it also lies on my night table!). I do think that Ray is precisely 
searching for challengers to his ideas, and this is also a reason why he 
asked both Max and Eric Drexler for comments/clarifications.

Finally, does anyone know when “The Singularity is Near” will finally be 
published?  Max, I remember that at Extro5 he said that the book would have 
been published in 2002. Here a wrong prediction of his! J

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