''Transcendent Man'' is a 2009 documentary film by American filmmaker
Barry Ptolemy
Robert Barry Ptolemy (born 1969) is an American film director, producer and writer. Ptolemy directed ''Transcendent Man'' (2009) a documentary film about futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil.
Life
Ptolemy was born in Los Angeles, California. His fa ...
about inventor,
futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...
and author
Ray Kurzweil
Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...
and his predictions about the future of technology in his 2005 book, ''
The Singularity is Near''. In the film, Ptolemy follows Kurzweil around his world as he discusses his thoughts on the
technological singularity
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the m ...
, a proposed advancement that will occur sometime in the 21st century when progress in
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
,
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
,
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...
, and
robotics
Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
will result in the creation of a human-machine civilization.
William Morris Endeavor
Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. (formerly known as William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, WME or WME-IMG) is an American holding company for talent and media agencies with its primary offices in Beverly Hills, California, United States. The compa ...
distributed the film partnership with Ptolemaic Productions and Therapy Studios, using an original model involving a nationwide screening tour of the film (featuring Q&A sessions with Ptolemy and Kurzweil), as well as separate digital and DVD releases. The film was also released on
iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
and On-Demand on March 1, 2011, and on DVD on May 24, 2011.
[Stewart, A. (January 11, 2011)]
Futurist Kurzweil goes worldwide with 'Man'
''Variety''. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
The film debuted for the first public screening at the
Time-Life Building
1271 Avenue of the Americas is a 48-story skyscraper on Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas), between 50th and 51st Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by architect Wallace Harrison of Harrison, Ab ...
in New York City on February 3, 2011. The same week, ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' ran the Singularity cover story by
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman (born June 26, 1969) is an American novelist and journalist who wrote ''The Magicians Trilogy'': '' The Magicians'' (2009), '' The Magician King'' (2011), and '' The Magician's Land'' (2014). He was the book critic and lead technolog ...
, with coverage about Kurzweil's ideas and the concepts, citing ''Transcendent Man''. Kurzweil toured the film, appearing on
Fox News Channel
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
,
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
,
MSNBC
MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
,
Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...
, and ''
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete Rose Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American former television journalist and talk show host. From 1991 to 2017, he was the host and executive producer of the talk show '' Charlie Rose'' on PBS and Bloomberg LP.
Rose also co-an ...
''. Additionally, Kurzweil went on to discuss the film on ''
The Colbert Report
''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show focuse ...
'', ''
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. The nightly hour-long show debuted on January 26, 2003, at Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood, Los ...
'', and ''
Real Time with Bill Maher
''Real Time with Bill Maher'' is an American television talk show that airs weekly on HBO, hosted by comedian and political satirist Bill Maher. Much like his previous series ''Politically Incorrect'' on Comedy Central and later on ABC, ''Real Ti ...
''.
Synopsis
Raymond Kurzweil, noted inventor and futurist, is a man who refuses to accept the inevitability of physical death. He proposes that the
Law of Accelerating Returns
In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is the observed Exponential growth, exponential nature of the rate of technological change in recent history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future an ...
—the exponential increase in the growth of information technology—will result in a "singularity", a point where humanity and machines will merge, allowing one to transcend biological
mortality
Mortality is the state of being mortal, or susceptible to death; the opposite of immortality.
Mortality may also refer to:
* Fish mortality, a parameter used in fisheries population dynamics to account for the loss of fish in a fish stock throug ...
: advances in genetics will provide the knowledge to reprogram biology, eliminate disease and stop the aging process; nanotechnology will keep humans healthy from the inside using robotic "
red blood cells
Red blood cells (RBCs), also referred to as red cells, red blood corpuscles (in humans or other animals not having nucleus in red blood cells), haematids, erythroid cells or erythrocytes (from Greek language, Greek ''erythros'' for "red" and ''k ...
" and provide a human-computer interface within the brain; robotics, or
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
, will make superhuman intelligence possible, including the ability to back up the mind.
Most of the movie has an implication of a religious background, and is applying technology to accomplish the goals with what is considered to be "god like" powers, through interdependent connection. Kurzweil has been criticized as being a modern-day prophet, however the film describes a detailed list of his inventions. Ray's dedication to improving the blind's quality of life is displayed in the climax of the film, with his miniature blind reading tool. Ray speaks of emailing someone a blouse, or printing out a toaster utilizing
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...
. Eventually swarms of our nanotechnology will be sent by us into the universe to, as Kurzweil puts it, "wake up the universe".
Against this optimistic backdrop of human and machine evolution, concerns about Kurzweil's predictions are raised by technology experts, philosophers, and commentators. Physician
William B. Hurlbut
William B. Hurlbutt is a Consulting Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University Medical Center. Born in 1945 in St. Helena, California, St. Helena, California, he grew up in Bronxville, New York, Bronxville, New York (state ...
warns of tragedy and views Kurzweil's claims as lacking a more moderate approach necessitated by
biological science
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
. AI engineer
Ben Goertzel
Ben Goertzel is a cognitive scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, CEO and founder of SingularityNET, leader of the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society, and chair of Humanity+. He helped popularize the term 'artificial general intell ...
champions the
transhumanist
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.
Transhuma ...
vision, but acknowledges the possibility of a
dystopian
A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...
outcome. AI researcher
Hugo de Garis
Hugo de Garis (born 1947, Sydney, Australia) is a retired researcher in the sub-field of artificial intelligence (AI) known as evolvable hardware. He became known in the 1990s for his research on the use of genetic algorithms to evolve artifici ...
warns of a coming "Artilect War", where god-like artificial intellects and those who want to build them, will fight against those who don't.
Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick (born 9 February 1954) is an English engineer and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Coventry University. He is known for his studies on direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, and has also done ...
, professor of
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...
at University of Reading, advocates the benefits of the singularity, but suggests the
Terminator scenario could also occur, where humans become subservient to machine and live on a farm, and the singularity is the point where humans lose control to the intelligent machines. Warwick basically spells doom for anyone who is human after the singularity.
Dean Kamen
Dean Lawrence Kamen (born April 5, 1951) is an American engineer, inventor, and businessman. He is known for his invention of the Segway and iBOT, as well as founding the non-profit organization FIRST with Woodie Flowers. Kamen holds over 1,000 ...
observes that advances in technology have finally made immortality a reasonable goal. At the end of the film, Kurzweil states, "if I was asked if god exists, I would say not yet."
Cast
* Tom Abate, Technology Reporter, ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
''.
*
Hugo De Garis
Hugo de Garis (born 1947, Sydney, Australia) is a retired researcher in the sub-field of artificial intelligence (AI) known as evolvable hardware. He became known in the 1990s for his research on the use of genetic algorithms to evolve artifici ...
, Professor of Computer Science and Mathematical Physics,
Xiamen University
Xiamen University (; Southern Min: ''Ē-mn̂g-toā-o̍h''), colloquially known as Xia Da (; Southern Min: ''Hā-tāi''), is a national public research university in Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee, a Chinese patriotic exp ...
.
*
Peter Diamandis
Peter H. Diamandis (; born May 20, 1961) is a Greek Americans, Greek-American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur best known for being founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University a ...
, Chairman,
X Prize Foundation.
*
Neil Gershenfeld
Neil Adam Gershenfeld (born December 1, 1959) is an American professor at MIT and the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, a sister lab to the MIT Media Lab. His research studies are predominantly focused in interdisciplinary studies in ...
, Director,
Center for Bits and Atoms
The Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) was established in 2001 in the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is currently run by Neil Gershenfeld. This cross-disciplinary center broadly looks at the intersection of information ...
,
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
.
*
Ben Goertzel
Ben Goertzel is a cognitive scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, CEO and founder of SingularityNET, leader of the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society, and chair of Humanity+. He helped popularize the term 'artificial general intell ...
, Artificial Intelligence Engineer.
*
William Hurlbut, Consulting Professor in the Neuroscience Institute at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
*
Kevin Kelly, Co-founder, ''
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
''.
* Aaron Kleiner, Kurzweil Technologies
* Hannah Kurzweil, mother of Ray Kurzweil
*
Ray Kurzweil
Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...
* Sonya R. Kurzweil, wife of Ray Kurzweil
*
Robert Metcalfe
Robert Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an engineer and entrepreneur from the United States who helped pioneer the Internet starting in 1970. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's law, which describes the e ...
, co-inventor of
Ethernet
Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
, founder of
3Com
3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...
*
Chuck Missler
Charles W. Missler (May 28, 1934 – May 1, 2018) was an American author, evangelical Christian, Bible teacher, engineer, and businessman.
Business career
Missler graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1956 and received a Master's degree in ...
, Technologist/Koinonia Institute
*
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African ...
, retired
four-star General in the United States Army.
* Steve Rabinowitz, college friend from MIT.
*
Philip Rosedale
Philip Rosedale (born September 29, 1968) is an American entrepreneur who founded Linden Lab, which develops and hosts the virtual world ''Second Life''.
Biography
Early life
Rosedale was born in San Diego, California, in 1968. He took an inter ...
, creator of ''
Second Life
''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...
''
*
William Shatner
William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterpri ...
*
Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick (born 9 February 1954) is an English engineer and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Coventry University. He is known for his studies on direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, and has also done ...
, Professor of Cybernetics,
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...
.
*
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
Music
American composer
Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...
scored the original soundtrack for the film. In addition to the ''Transcendent Man'' score, other music from Glass's collection was included in the soundtrack.
*"A Brief History of Time"
*"Koyaanisqatsi"
*"Kyoko's House" (from Mishima)
*"Religion" (from
Naqoyqatsi
''Naqoyqatsi'', also known as ''Naqoyqatsi: Life as War'', is a 2002 American non-narrative film directed by Godfrey Reggio and edited by Jon Kane, with music composed by Philip Glass. It is the third and final installment in the Qatsi trilogy.
...
)
*"Satyagraha Act III" (Conclusion)
*"Symphony No. 3"
*"The Thin Blue Line"
*"Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"
Release
The ''Transcendent Man'' tour visited five major cities in the U.S., as well as London. These screenings featured question and answer sessions with director Barry Ptolemy and Ray Kurzweil following the film, as well as V.I.P. receptions.
Ptolemaic Productions and Therapy Studios have pursued an alternative distribution strategy for ''Transcendent Man'', going through the Global and Music departments of agency
William Morris Endeavor
Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. (formerly known as William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, WME or WME-IMG) is an American holding company for talent and media agencies with its primary offices in Beverly Hills, California, United States. The compa ...
to partner with iTunes and Media-on-Demand for a March 1, 2011 digital release and with
New Media
New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...
for a May 24, 2011 DVD release.
Marketing made use of
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
and emerging technologies like
QR code
A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...
s to appeal to a tech-savvy audience.
Film festivals
*April 28, 2009 -
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
, World Documentary Feature Competition.
*November 5, 2009 -
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Leade ...
film festival, Los Angeles.
*November 24, 2009 -
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...
(
IDFA), Amsterdam, Netherlands, screened in competition.
*March 2010 -
Martha's Vineyard Film Festival.
[Robards, B. (March 11, 2010)]
Martha's Vineyard Film Festival this weekend
. ''The Martha's Vineyard Times
''The Martha’s Vineyard Times'' is an independently owned weekly community newspaper, published by The MV Times Corp. on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, seven miles off the coast of Southeastern Massachusetts. The newspaper has an average c ...
''.
Criticism
One common criticism of Kurzweil's final prediction is that he does not consider that new technologies are never universally and immediately adopted due to the laws of economics. Start-up costs and
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
mean that initially transhumanist technology would be prohibitively expensive for most people. This would cause the
wealthy
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...
, first adopters of brain enhancing technology to be transcendental above the less fortunate. One response to this criticism uses the technology of the automobile as an example. Even though a rich person might drive an expensive
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to:
* Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct
Automobiles
* Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...
, cheaper alternatives are available that perform the same task. In other words, no matter how much two cars differ in price, their function is virtually identical. One important element of Kurzweil's singularity is that the cost will come down to virtually nothing.
[Archived a]
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine
Kurzweil readily defends AI as being controllable against malicious behavior, which he accepts is a definite threat. He never, on the other hand, confronts the dangers of AI fusing with the first humans.
References
Further reading
*Barker, A. (November 23, 2009). Transcendent Man. ''Variety''. 417 (2), 34.
*Gefter, A. (May 8, 2009)
''New Scientist''. 202 (2707), 27.
*Shermer, M. (April 1, 2011). The Immortalist. ''Science''. 332 (6025), 40.
*Tucker, P. (2009). The Cinematic Singularitarian. ''The Futurist''. 43 (5), 60.
External links
*
*
*
Transcendent Man' on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
{{Philip Glass , state=collapsed
2009 films
Biographical documentary films
Documentary films about technology
Documentary films about death
Films scored by Philip Glass
American independent films
Transhumanism
Futurology documentaries
2000s English-language films
2000s American films