Sunday, January 6, 2013

TechCrunch | Google’s new Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, is building your cybernetic friend



This may not immediately seem relevant to going to the Moon or space but I think the Internet will be a part of the communication process and a way that we may be kept informed. You have probably already been using one or more search engines to find materials of interest.  Google continues to improve and expand on what it can do for you and for Google itself.  Some are concerned about how filters are used and just what material is found first and foremost for you.

It looks like Ray Kurzweil is joining Google and wants to build a search engine so sophisticated that it could act like a cybernetic friend.

You may want to keep an eye out for any new friends. WWW:WAKE - WWW:WATCH - WWW:WONDER  :-)
- LRK -

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TechCrunch | Google’s new Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, is building your cybernetic friend

January 6, 2013
Source: TechCrunch — January 6, 2013 | Gregory Ferenstein
World-renowned artificial intelligence expert andGoogle’s new Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, wants to build a search engine so sophisticated that it could act like a ‘cybernetic friend,’ who knows users better than they know themselves.
“I envision in some years that the majority of search queries will be answered without you actually asking,” he said at an intimate gathering at Singularity University’s NASA campus. [...]
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Some links to look at should you want to keep up with Google.
- LRK -

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Ray Kurzweil Joins Google In Full-Time Engineering Director Role; Will Focus On Machine Learning, Language Processing

Friday, December 14th, 2012

Famed inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil announced this afternoon that he has been hired by search engine giantGoogle as a director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing. He starts this upcoming Monday, according to a report issued on his website.
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The Cybernetic Friend.
- LRK -

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Google’s New Director Of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, Is Building Your ‘Cybernetic Friend’

GREGORY FERENSTEIN

World-renowned artificial intelligence expert andGoogle’s new Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, wants to build a search engine so sophisticated that it could act like a ‘cybernetic friend,’ who knows users better than they know themselves. “I envision in some years that the majority of search queries will be answered without you actually asking,” he said at an intimate gathering at Singularity University’s NASA campus.
Kurzweil, a noted futurist and engineer, tells me in a rare follow-up interview that CEO Larry Page offered him the job after learning of his intention to start a company to build his long-held dream of an artificially intelligent computer. “Why don’t you do that here?” Page asked him. “Google is quite unique,” explains Kurzweil, on his decision to head to the search giant, rather than venture out on his own. “It fundamentally deals with language.”
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OK, now think what could happen when the Internet becomes sentient.
- LRK -

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Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think ("reason") from the ability to feel ("sentience"). In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences (described by some thinkers as "qualia"). For Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that requires respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights, because sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, which is held to entail certain rights.

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And if your imagination has been aroused and you haven't read these books by Robert J Sawyer you may find interesting.  If you read them I think you will want to keep a closer watch on your favorite search engine. 
- LRK -

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WWW:WAKE - WWW:WATCH  - WWW:WONDER

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Well, while I am awake, I will watch, and wonder. :-)
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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