The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human IntelligenceRay Kurzweil, called a "restless genius" by "The Wall Street Journal," is responsible for some of the most compelling technology of our era. The brains behind the Kurzweil Reading Machine (which helps Stevie Wonder read his mail), the Kurzweil synthesizer, and the voice-recognition program that appears on Windows 98, he is also a formidable thinker who a decade ago predicted the emergence of the World Wide Web and that a computer would beat the world chess champion. Finally, someone with the authority to speak about the future also has the courage and imagination to do so. "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is no list of predictions but a framework for envisioning the 21st century in which one advance or invention leads inexorably to another. After establishing that technology is growing exponentially, Kurzweil forecasts that computers will exceed the memory capacity and computing speed of the human brain by 2020, with the other attributes of human intelligence not far behind. By that time paraplegics will be able to walk by using a combination of nerve stimulation and robotic devices. You will be able to choose the personality of your automated computer assistant, who will conduct business on your behalf with other automated personalities. A mere nine years later, you will be able to enhance your intelligence with neural implants. The upshot is that human identity will be called into question as never before, as a billion years of evolution are superseded in a mere hundred by machine technology that we ourselves have created. We will become cyborgs, but what will computers become? |
Contents
THE LAW OF TIME AND CHAOS | 9 |
THE INTELLIGENCE OF EVOLUTION | 40 |
OF MIND AND MACHINES 155 | 51 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence Ray Kurzweil Limited preview - 2000 |
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence Ray Kurzweil Limited preview - 2000 |
The Age of Spiritual Machines: How We Will Live, Work and Think in the New ... Ray Kurzweil No preview available - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
ability Accelerating Returns Artificial Intelligence atoms Babbage body busy beaver calculations per second called Cambridge cells chaos Charles Babbage chess circuits communication complex conscious consider created Cybernetic Poet decades developed devices Earth electronic emergence encryption Engine environment evolutionary algorithm evolved example experience exponential growth genetic human brain human intelligence images interaction knowledge Kurzweil language Law of Accelerating Lernout & Hauspie machine intelligence Marvin Minsky mathematical means mechanisms million years ago mind molecules Moore's Law MOSH move nanobots nanotechnology nanotubes neural implants neural net neural nets neurons Okay organisms paradigm particles pattern personal computer photons physical planet predict problem puter qu-bits quantum computer recursive robot scan self-replicating simulated solution solve species speech speed tactile theory THERE'S three-dimensional tion transistor trillion Turing Test twenty-first century understand Universe Utility Fog virtual reality visual York