Review of The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil
In the first chapter of his book The Age of Spiritual Machines, author Ray Kurzweil gives a very brief history of the Universe, which serves as a preface for his subsequent theories. In this history, Kurzweil chronicles the rapid expansion of time between salient events in the history of the Universe, describing time, in his own words, as geometrically slowing (pg. 10). He then jumps headfirst into the history of evolution, and shortly thereafter of technology, in both of which the time between salient events is shrinking exponentially. This leads him to question the opposing nature of the trend (how can time be accelerating as applied to technology and evolution yet decelerating as applied to the very Universe which contains these?) as well as search for similarities between the trends. Thus is created Kurzweil's first theoretical law, that of time and chaos. Kurzweil's Law of Time and Chaos is as follows; "In a process, the time interval between salient
It is not a difficult comparison which leads Kurzweil to postulate that some day computers, the intelligence that man created, will some day become more intelligent than man himself. It is also not difficult to foresee the day when computers more intelligent than man will begin to create intelligence more intelligent than they-thus Kurzweil brings to a close his second chapter, setting nicely the stage for the rest of the book. With the an understanding of the Laws of Accelerating Returns and of Time and Chaos firmly under our belts, Kurzweil advances to the next chapter in order to answer a question subtly raised by his faith in the continuing exponential advancement of technology-can an intelligence (such as ours) create an intelligence (such as the artificial intelligence of our computers) more intelligent than itself? His answer is yes, and he comes to this conclusion by looking at the process of human evolution as an intelligence in itself. If this i
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Approximate Word count = 652
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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