The Age Of Spiritual Machines

[Drellix]

Has anyone read anything by Ray Kurzweil? It's really interesting stuff. Most of his predictions have been correct, or it happened faster then he predicted. He predicts that the personal computer will have human level intelligence by 2020. It's a really good book and I suggest checking it out.

[CFTraveler]

Frankly, I hope he's wrong.

[Palehorse Redivivus]

Yeah... electronics are temperamental enough as it is. Pretty soon they really will be breaking down just to spite you.

[sash]

Intelligence misses one thing, the Soul. Intelligence running without Soul was recorded as a quote as 'The Antichrist', I don't remember who said it though.

[Drellix]

Basically what he is saying is that WE will become the machines. Like I said most of his predictions have been right up to this point, and according to his math I wouldn't be surprised. The exponential nature of the increasing power of the integrated circut is just crazy. Think of how fast we went in 10 years from not alot of people having computers to relying on them completely. Pending some global disaster, what Ray Kurweil is saying is that we will become machines ourselves.

Evolution took billions of years to create us. We did with technology in thousands of years what took evolution billions. In turn we will create another process more intelligent then us.

[CFTraveler]

Drellix wrote:

In turn we will create another process more intelligent than us.

And that is the scary part.
cue the Borg: "Resistance is futile"
watch (the modern) Battlestar Galactica, or read the Hyperion trilogy by Dan Simmons.

Science fiction, yes. A scary possibility.

[journyman161]

Evolution took billions of years to create us. We did with technology in thousands of years what took evolution billions. In turn we will create another process more intelligent then us.

Well, we haven't done it yet... Yes we've come a long way but we are also pushing the limits of what is possible within the current paradigm. Spintronics pushed back the boundaries a little but so far has mainly been applied to storage rather than processing.

The limits we are reaching are pretty basic ones - something has to change before we can make the next step to self-aware machines. When you look at the processing times in the human brain, it is apparent there is something else going on other than neurons activating. Almost all the time lag in human reactions can be traced to the physical messaging - there is virtually none of it attributable to the decision-making process or even the contemplative process.

A possibility might be the interconnectivity of the Internet, providing the infrastructure for the creation of an AI that sprawls world-wide - but again the time lag of the messaging comes into play - at the moment, such an entity would have to somehow come about within the disjointed electrical field that emanates from the millions of computers that make up the 'net.

For now, computers are ALL about the physical messages, even within the cores. Until the processing is somehow moved out of the physical systems, I doubt we will be able to emulate, let alone surpass, the human 'machine'

But adding capabilities to the human machine is a distinct possibility. I don't know if we can beat the awareness paradigm of humans, but I wouldn't mind some hig-speed RAM & storage available for 'outsourcing' some of the stuff that takes solid cogitation. It would be nice to say - 'here's the problem. Calculate this & give me an answer' & then go about my business.

But again, there is a consideration here - maybe if I learned to actually use all my capability & capacity, I could surpass the performance of any physical adjunct just using native hardware, software & soulware? After all, we don't even have a proper explanation for the flashes of genius & intuition that a lot of people experience - maybe it would be available to all if we only change the current environment for learning?

[CFTraveler]

hardware, software & soulware

I really like that.

[journyman161]

I seem to recall being called 'geek' so it's a natural step for me to see things that way *grins*

[Drellix]

Well, we haven't done it yet... Yes we've come a long way but we are also pushing the limits of what is possible within the current paradigm. Spintronics pushed back the boundaries a little but so far has mainly been applied to storage rather than processing.

The limits we are reaching are pretty basic ones - something has to change before we can make the next step to self-aware machines. When you look at the processing times in the human brain, it is apparent there is something else going on other than neurons activating. Almost all the time lag in human reactions can be traced to the physical messaging - there is virtually none of it attributable to the decision-making process or even the contemplative process.

Yes, there is limitations to this currently, but according to Kurzweils math we will achieve this in personal computers by 2020. Ok, so computers can process things much faster than we can. They are still about as intelligent as incects at this point. They still couldn't tell you what the objects are on a kitchen table. Basically, he explains exactly how you would reverse engineer a human brain. You wouldn't need to how the entire brain works to reverse engineer it. Just the parts. Then you would feed it information. Computers arent just going to be "a little" more intelligent then us, they will be thousands of times smarter then us. Probably in our lifetimes. And we won't even realize that it has happened. He goes very in depth, relates it to evolution, the laws of time and choas, its all speculative of course but he has been right for the most part so far... resistence is futile haha... i'm pretty convinced after reading the book at least. He is definatly an optimist. I would checking this book out of a library, then deciding for yourself what to think about his ideas.


Maybe check out some of these articles
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=3