ClaimsRay Kurzweil

“I think the SETI project will fail—it’s actually a very important failure, because sometimes a negative finding is just as profound as a positive finding”

Ray Kurzweil, essay author 12 December 2002 The Intelligent Universe (Kurzweil Library) archived copy

Prediction Science and research methods

Kurzweil said he thinks the SETI project will fail to find extraterrestrial intelligence.

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

Open-ended prediction with no horizon; failure to find ETI could still change at any time.

Cite this claim

Ray Kurzweil, “Kurzweil said he thinks the SETI project will fail to find extraterrestrial intelligence.” (said 12 December 2002). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_708ba24efeec, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_708ba24efeec

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. Resolved false Prediction 2001
    “With the revolutions in genomics, proteomics, rational drug design, therapeutic cloning of our own organs and tissues, and related developments in bio-information sciences, we will be adding more…”

    Within ten years of 2001, biotechnology advances will add more than a year of life expectancy every year.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.