Agreed, especially since, from what I’ve seen, Kurzweil’s reason for being so sanguine about Global Warming is exponential growth. He doesn’t seem to reflect on the problems that Global Warming is causing right now, or that the growth in renewables has come in a large part because of people who are concerned.
And the idea that we shouldn’t worry isn’t reassuring when it comes from someone who’s predictions of the future have mostly been incorrect. This is a man who stands by his predictions that by 2009, human musicians and cybernetic musicians would routinely play music together and that most text would come from voice recognition software, not keyboards. Anyone that takes him seriously should re-read that chapter with predictions for 2009 (which talks about 3D entertainment rooms, the growing popularity of computer authors, 3D art coming from computer artists being displayed on screens hung up on people’s houses, nanobots that think for themselves, the growing industry of creating the personalities for the artificial personas we routinely communicate with, etc.) and keep in mind that Kurzweil says his predictions were mostly accurate.
So I know we've already seen them buying a bunch of ML and robotics companies, but now they're purchasing Shane Legg's AGI startup. This is after they've acquired Boston Dynamics, several smaller robotics and ML firms, and started their own life-extension firm.
Is it just me, or are they trying to make Accelerando or something closely related actually happen? Given that they're buying up real experts and not just "AI is inevitable" prediction geeks (who shall remain politely unnamed out of respect for their real, original expertise in machine learning), has someone had a polite word with them about not killing all humans by sheer accident?