The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence [Abridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B000OYDNBA | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Imagine a world where the difference between man and machines blurs, where the line between humanity and technology fades, and where the soul and the silicon chip unite. This is not science fiction. This is the 21st century according to Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era. In this audiobook, the brain behind the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the Kurzweil synthesizer, advanced speech recognition, and other technologies devises a framework for envisioning the next century. Kurzweil guides us through the inexorable advances that will result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain.
The Age of Spiritual Machines is no mere list of predictions, but a prophetic blueprint for the future.
Books with free ebook downloads available The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence [Abridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Free PDF
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 3 hours
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Abridged
- Publisher: Penguin Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: December 16, 1999
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000OYDNBA
Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines' is an intelligent look at what the future might be holding for us all. Like other similar titles - Visions by Michio Kaku comes to mind - Kurzweil tries to predict where science will take us. Unlike `Visions' however, this book is considerably more focused on computer technology and artificial intelligence, and I would only recommend it if you're not looking for a much broader answer to the question of where we are headed. Kurzweil never intended to cover other matters, and reading the Prologue will be enough to understand that most of the book will explore the rising of machine intelligence to a level that will surpass the capabilities of the human brain.
Kurzweil starts by describing the exponential growth of computer power, Moore's Law, and transistor-based computing. The present and the future are described until quantum effects start becoming a problem and a completely new kind of technology becomes necessary (some alternatives are mentioned, Quantum computation is of course, mentioned). The book proceeds to more metaphysical subjects, and questions if we can create another intelligence form more intelligent than ourselves. Can the created exceed the creator?
It will then proceed to cover consciousness and feelings; Kurzweil gets philosophical in what in my opinion is one of the book's weakest chapters The methods available to solve a wide range of intelligent problems (when combined with heavy doses of computation) will follow, in a chapter that covers subjects from recursive formulas to neural nets, and of course, enough space is dedicated to Alan Turing, the father of all modern computers.
Ray Kurzweil is well known for the myriad of inventions he has pioneered, from the original Kurzweil Synthesizer through a series of computerized appliances designed to make life easier for the handicapped. He is less well known for his previous book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines," and for his shockingly accurate past prognosticating on the future of technology (he missed calling the chess match victory of Deep Blue against Kasparov by one year...making the prediction a decade or more ago). Now Kurzweil is weighing in on what the astounding exponential advance of computer processing power is going to mean to the human race. In short, he goes way, *way* out on a limb, and flatly predicts that human minds and bodies will have largely combined and integrated with super-powerful computers within 100 years from today. Furthermore, he convincingly extrapolates present advances in computing power to predict that a $1,000 desktop PC in the year 2020 will have equal computing power to a human mind. Then 40 years after that, by 2060, a desktop computer will have the combined computing power of every human mind on earth. And that curve will continue increasing until individual computers within the next hundred years will have the computing power of billions of human minds. In the face of that, Kurzweil predicts, human beings will assimilate with the new super-intelligence of machines, in order to bypass biological evolution and supercharge not only our minds but also our bodies, which will be remade and redesigned in virtually any way we might find compelling and useful. In short, Kurzweil is predicting the emergence of a new species within the next 100 years, as machine intelligence exceeds carbon-based intelligence by millions of powers. Scary? Not at all.
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