It’s bad because as I understand it, his goals are to make people adjust their behavior and attitude for the singularity before it happens (something that is well aligned with what MIRI wants to do) and if he isn’t taken seriously then people won’t do this. Such things include taking seriously transhumanist concepts (life extension, uploading, etc.) and other concepts such as cryonics. I can’t speak for Kurzweil but it seems that he thinks that if people took these ideas seriously right now, we would be headed for a much smoother and more pleasant ride into the future (as opposed to suddenly being awoken to a hard FOOM scenario rapidly eating up your house, your lunch, and then you). I agree with this perspective.
It’s bad because as I understand it, his goals are to make people adjust their behavior and attitude for the singularity before it happens (something that is well aligned with what MIRI wants to do) and if he isn’t taken seriously then people won’t do this. Such things include taking seriously transhumanist concepts (life extension, uploading, etc.) and other concepts such as cryonics. I can’t speak for Kurzweil but it seems that he thinks that if people took these ideas seriously right now, we would be headed for a much smoother and more pleasant ride into the future (as opposed to suddenly being awoken to a hard FOOM scenario rapidly eating up your house, your lunch, and then you). I agree with this perspective.