ClaimsRay Kurzweil

“Perhaps we will be lucky this time, and we will indeed succeed in developing defenses for these killer flu viruses before they are needed.”

Kurzweil and Joy, op-ed authors October 2005 A recipe for destruction (NYT op-ed with Bill Joy) (Kurzweil Library / NYT) archived copy

Prediction Biosecurity

We may be lucky and succeed in developing defenses against killer flu viruses before they are needed.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?

Reasoning

A vague 'may be lucky' hedge with no horizon cannot be tested.

Cite this claim

Ray Kurzweil, “We may be lucky and succeed in developing defenses against killer flu viruses before they are needed.” (said October 2005). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_3286aa553cda, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_3286aa553cda

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Ray Kurzweil, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More prediction claims by Ray Kurzweil

  1. Mostly false Prediction May 2020
    “This is where combining AI with biotechnology is headed, and within several years all vaccine and medication development could be done this way.”

    Within several years all vaccine and medication development could be done by combining AI with biotechnology.

  2. Mostly false Prediction 3 June 2015
    “We're going to gradually merge and enhance ourselves.”

    Kurzweil predicted that humans will gradually merge with technology and enhance themselves.

  3. Resolved true Prediction 12 December 2002
    “Ten or 15 years from now we’ll go to the third dimension.”

    Ten or 15 years after 2002, computing will move to three-dimensional circuits as integrated circuits run out of steam.

  4. Mostly false Prediction January 2001
    “Computers will be able to read on their own, understanding and modeling what they have read, by the second decade of the twenty-first century.”

    Computers will be able to read on their own, understanding and modeling what they read, by the second decade of the 21st century.

  5. Mostly false Prediction January 2001
    “In line with my earlier predictions, supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by around 2020.”

    Supercomputers will achieve one human brain's capacity by 2010, and personal computers by around 2020.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.