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

Kurzweil, Ray

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670882178 ISBN 13: 9780670882175

Publisher: Viking Pr, 1998

Synopsis

The creator of the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the Kurzweil synthesizer, and the Windows 95 voice-recognition program offers logical and readable forecasts about twenty-first century technology. 65,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Review:

"This is a book for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next".

-- The New York Times Book Review

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0670882178
• ISBN 13: 9780670882175
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 388