The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence: When Computer Exceed Human Intelligence - Softcover

Kurzweil, Ray

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140282025 ISBN 13: 9780140282023

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2000

Synopsis

The national bestseller by the "ultimate thinking machine" (Forbes) whose predictions for the future are startling, provocative--and closer to fruition than you think.

Ray Kurzweil is the inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era, an international authority on artificial intelligence, and one of our greatest living visionaries. Now he offers a framework for envisioning the twenty-first century--an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future takes us through the advances that inexorably result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level capabilities not far behind); in relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and in information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways. Optimistic and challenging, thought-provoking and engaging, The Age of Spiritual Machines is the ultimate guide on our road into the next century.

"The Age of Spiritual Machines will blow your mind. . . . Kurzweil lays out a scenario that might seem like science fiction if it weren't coming from a proven entrepreneur."-- San Francisco Chronicle
The Age of Spiritual Machines appeared on national bestseller lists, including the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle
Kurzweil's first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, won the Association of American Publishers Award for the Most Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990

About this title

About the Author

Ray Kurzweil is a prize-winning author and scientist. He was named Inventor of the Year by MIT in 1988 and was awarded the Dickson Prize, Carnegie Mellon's top science prize, in 1994. He is the recipient of nine honorary doctorates and honors from two American presidents. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

From the Back Cover

Step into the world of Ray Kurzweil, the "restless genius" (Wall Street Journal) and "ultimate thinking machine" (Forbes), whose predictions for an age in which man and machine are interchangeable are startling, provocative -- and closer to realization than you think.

Imagine a world where the difference between man and machine 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 twenty-first century according to Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era. In his inspired hands, life in the new millennium no longer seems daunting. Instead, it promises to be an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live.

More than just a list of predictions, Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future guides us through the inexorable advances that will result in: computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level capabilities not far behind); relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways. Eventually, the distinction between humans and computers will have become sufficiently blurred that when the machines claim to be conscious, we will believe them.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140282025
• ISBN 13: 9780140282023
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400