The compelling feature-length documentary film, by director Barry Ptolemy, chronicles the life and controversial ideas of luminary Ray Kurzweil. For more than three decades, inventor, futures, and New York Times best-selling author Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future.
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Ray Kurzweil hasn't said anything that Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke didn't already say. I don't get the hype.
Edit: The full title should be "Transcendent Man - Men will literally try to bring about the A.I. apocalypse instead of going to therapy".
I've been listening to Bill Laurance's album Cables, and I decided to check Transcendent Man out because Bill said this documentary was an inspiration for that album and especially for the track "Cables". It was really interesting to see where his ideas came from, and I'd say that the album is a really nice companion piece to this documentary. However, I would be lying if I said I liked it for reasons outside of Bill's music. The documentary is largely unfocused, the editing and graphics are obtrusive, and Kurzweil comes off as pretentious, narcissistic, and arrogant. Take a shot every time someone says "exponential" and you'll die in 15 minutes.
I've thought about this documentary often ever since I first watched it when it first came out. It's hard not to as technology keeps advancing. Rewatching it years later, Ray Kurzweil's seems much sadder and desperate to me with his ideas in a tragic way, but it's also fascinating how his predictions are (slowly) playing out 11 years. This also feels like it's trying too hard to copy Errol Morris' style, but the subject matter here is still very fun to think about. Anyway, can't wait to turn into a super genius robot in my lifetime or else I'm going to be pissed.
Ray Kurzweil feels like the antagonist to some kind of animated film about a cyberpunk dystopia and I think that is very funny
quite interesting watch, had to do it for class
it unnerved me x 100 how bold he was in the claims he was making & i agree with the note that maybe he’ll be remembered more “as a poet than as a mechanic”
as a person in tech or whatever + the recent advent of gpt tools i wonder how his predictions would change if this documentary was newer
also i feel like this vision & it’s urgency is so driven from the human fear of death & grief & loss & i like that the directors showed that bc it added a little context / irony to his madness lol frankesntein energy + it seemed so so naive to me that he didn’t consider…
A documentary about Ray Kurzweil. Really doesn't have anything new about the science-fictioney type stuff if you are up on that, like I am. It is worth watching though for a glimpse into the personal life of Kurzweil, particularly his relationship with his father. I liked that they did interview some people who debunked what Kurzweil was saying, otherwise it would have been straight up hagiography. Now that it's ten years past the making of this movie, the predictions that K makes seem even further away in the future and less plausible. It reminded of "To Mars in Cars", the old uber-optimistic portrayal of the future where we'll all have flying cars. It's nice to see some optimism though because…
I low key want to live forever, and, if losing my “humanity” (whatever the he’ll that is) is part of that, then so be it. I hope this man is right in what he says in this documentary.
Watched as part of a class on Blade Runner and how it changed science fiction and on what it means to be a human as explored through the lens science fiction films.
A pretty good documentary film if you ask me. This film touches upon the topic of Singularity, bringing in a multitude of different opinions from distinguished professors as to when it may actually occur. Ray Kurzweil is one in particular who is absolutely sure of the date of the event, whereas some people agree with him and some do not. It was also a little weird to see Ray's odd routines as his way of prolonging his life so he will be able to witness the event and to hopefully implant his subconscious into a machine. This film makes nods to the future, has some interesting ideas to it, and some of the technology that was depicted was pretty intriguing to learn about.
