Ray Kurzweil’s Double-Edged Absurdity


Raymond_Kurzweil_Fantastic_VoyageI wish Ray Kurzweil would cease his waffling about a supposed “double-edged sword.” It’s a silly notion he utters in almost every interview.

Whoops I’ve sliced my fingers off on the sword-edge of my keyboard typing this.

Technology isn’t a doubled-edged sword. At worst it is a 99% good sword and tiny 1% bad sword. Doubled-edged implies a 50/50 harm/goodness.



How often do you cut your fingers when using a sharp knife? I rarely cut my fingers. Perhaps on one occasion in every hundred I will cut my finger when using a knife, which is a generous pandering to Ray’s unfounded fears regarding possible threats from technology. In actuality, from my viewpoint, the bad from technology is considerably less than 1%.

Statistically there are fatal car crashes happening all the time, but the chance of you being in fatal crash is very slim. Existential risk is certainly not a double-edged fifty-fifty scenario. This very low car crash risk is same for all technology; furthermore risk is continually being reduced because technology is improving. Technology is becoming smarter.

What will be the supposed double-edge be when self-driving cars drastically reduce traffic fatalities? There will be no double-edge because risk is not increasing, risk is decreasing.

Ray said (5 Oct 2015): “Technology has been a double-edged sword since fire kept us warm but burned down our villages.”


The reference to villages burning down highlights the anachronistic unreality of Ray’s views applied to modern life.

How many times have you burned down your village? Have you ever burned down your house? House fires happen, but they’re very uncommon in the circles I move in. I’ve never met anyone who suffered their house or village burning down. Perhaps I move in smarter circles? Maybe Ray burns down his village every week?

The idea of villages burning down is the essence of bogus AI-fear, or synbio-biotech hysteria. No village is going to burn down. Yes Ray is being metaphoric, but neither will there be a new world war or terrorist destruction of the world, contrary to fear and doom by Alex Jones and Max Keiser types.


Ray’s double-edged sword refers to bio-terrorists modifying a flu virus to create a WMD. Perhaps it is similar to the Swine Flu hysteria a few years ago where everyone died, or the Ebola hysteria where people assumed the end of the world was coming?


Terrorists are utterly insignificant compared to roughly half a million yearly cancer deaths in the USA. In the UK 161,823 people died from cancer in 2012, according to Cancer Research UK. You are more likely to to be killed by lightning, or win the lottery, than die from terrorism.

While Ray does get many things right, he is far from perfect. Perhaps his imperfectness is something he subconsciously desires. He often states he is not a utopian. The power of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy should not be underestimated.


Ray previously stated biology is now an information technology, growing exponentially; furthermore on one occasion, at least, Ray stated scarcity causes conflict. Ray admits scarcity is being eroded regarding info-tech. The contradiction in Ray’s thinking is clear. If biology is info-tech growing exponentially, reducing scarcity thereby reducing conflict, why does he think “bio-terror” is an increased risk?

Ray said in March 2012: “I’ve actually grown up with a history of scarcity – and wars and conflict come from scarcity – but information is quite the opposite of that.” Ray stated in Oct 2005: “We are making exponential progress in every type of information technology. Moreover, virtually all technologies are becoming information technologies.” Similarly in July 2009 Ray stated “…biology is now an information technology.”

Think about what Ray stated on those various occasions.

Scarcity causes conflict, which Ray grew-up with, whereas information is rapidly moving away from scarcity. Biology is an information technology, thus subject to the same scarcity-reducing exponential growth. It seems clear Ray does, at least subconsciously, see how bio-terrorists must be a reducing NOT increasing risk?


For years Ray warned us about bio-terror, but the supposed bio-terrorists haven’t risen to his challenge. Perhaps one day Ray’s Self-Fulfilling Prophecy will win through, then he will get the bio-terror he seems to yearn for. In the meantime I intelligently focus on utopia.

Ray was my initial source of inspiration, but these days I think Eric Schmidt is a better source of inspiration, a fountain of wisdom, very rational, because Eric admits to being a “utopian.”

Let’s face our dawning utopian reality. There is no threat from village-burning keyboards, or display screens cutting off our fingers. Similarly unfriendly AI, or bio-terror, is comparable to historic anti-train propaganda, which stated locomotive travel at the high speed of 20mph could cause people to disintegrate or asphyxiate along with blighting crops. Historically, regarding train travel at 50mph, it was stated women would suffer their uteruses flying out of their bodies.

The main risk, likely to disastrously threaten our existence, is the painful absurdity of Kurzweil, MIRI, FLI, Hawking, or other fearful scaremongers.

Scarcity of intelligence is the only problem. Limits upon information-technology are the only danger. Absurd critics sadly link rapid growth in biology or AI to great peril.

The first edge of their absurdity relates to approximately 100,000 daily deaths regarding age-related disease. Sufficiently advanced AI will certainly cure all disease, along with ending aging. Irrational fears could delay AI progress in medicine, which will likely cause needless deaths. The second edge of their absurdity could easily kill our will to live regarding the mind-numbing agony of their “unfounded” beliefs.




Infographic from https://www.domo.com/blog/2014/04/data-never-sleeps-2-0/