ClaimsRay Kurzweil

“The fact that computer viruses are not usually deadly to humans only encourages more people to create and release them.”

Ray Kurzweil, essay author 23 October 2000 Promise + Peril (Kurzweil Library) archived copy

Factual Technology

Computer viruses not usually being deadly to humans encourages more people to create and release them.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

Reasoning

Claim about motivations of virus authors; psychological and untestable.

Cite this claim

Ray Kurzweil, “Computer viruses not usually being deadly to humans encourages more people to create and release them.” (said 23 October 2000). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_80b4b3be96c1, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_80b4b3be96c1

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 factual claims by Ray Kurzweil

  1. Mostly false Factual March 2025
    “It’s true of every type of technology.”

    Exponential growth applies to every type of technology, not just computers.

  2. Mostly true Factual October 2024
    “Neuralink, for example, is implanted in two paralyzed patients.”

    Neuralink has been implanted in two paralyzed patients who can control a computer with their brain.

  3. Mixed Factual 23 October 2000
    “Yet the “immune system” that has evolved in response to this challenge has been largely effective.”

    The 'immune system' that evolved in response to computer viruses has been largely effective.

  4. Mostly false Factual 23 October 2000
    “Although destructive, self-replicating software entities do cause damage from time to time, the injury is but a small fraction–much less than one-tenth of 1 percent–of the benefit we receive from the…”

    Damage from self-replicating software is much less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the benefit received from computers and communication links.

  5. Mostly false Factual 4 June 2026
    “That was not true a year ago. But that’s true today.”

    Large language models being roughly 50% better than human doctors at diagnosing conditions and recommending treatments was not true a year ago but is true today.

All of them

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